


Adherence to Subjective Morality

by CorvusConstellation



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Backstory, Bad Decisions, Character Death, Child Death, Falling Jedi, Gen, Murder, Not Canon Compliant - SWTOR, Plague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvusConstellation/pseuds/CorvusConstellation
Summary: The story of a Jedi who is taken in by the charming smile of a child, and dooms thousands to death in the process.





	Adherence to Subjective Morality

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this for Teen and Up, but I do want to put out there that it is a bit more violent than that, but not enough that I would boost it up to mature. It runs the line, I think.

Shadows fell deep across the sands of a small outer rim world. A forest rose out of the dirt and anchored underneath the substrate in a configuration of nature that would have confounded most of those who had spent their lives cushioned within what was considered civilized space. Branches knitted together in a rounded lattice work that made it seem as if every trunk was simply a root shooting down, rather than a stem reaching up. The light came through in patches that were sometimes big enough for a small ship to pass through, while other times were no bigger than a child’s reach across.

  
In the silence of a land without animals, a Jedi stood at the foot of his commissioned ship, eyes cast upwards at the fading sky and willing the sun to set faster so he could see the glorious starscape from the ground once more before he had to take to the skies in a flight that would have him stranded for over a month in the cold dead of space. The ramp that he almost dreaded to touch looked uninviting at best, and a stain on the otherwise untouched landscape at worst. There was nothing inhabitable for over fifty miles in either direction, and those that were there were the last of the settlers here- and they were leaving, too.

  
A voice called out from within the diminutive ship, high and crystal clear even through the hollow echo of unyielding metal, “We haven't time to dally, Nob.”

  
Nobrieley pressed his lips together and cast his eyes down, his spotted lekku twitched in his bitter disappointment. Another time, he promised himself; he would be back to this planet to see its stars another time. It took only a moment to regain his composure and push down all physical evidence of his hesitation. When he stepped onto the ramp and into the ship, he was statuesque in his Jedi-calm.

  
His partner in this expedition was barely a Knight, a young Rodian named Fezu. Her eyes glittered as she looked up at him and began to start up the ship and prepare it for their voyage. Whenever he looked at Rodians, he mused that somehow they carried all the stars of the universe in those eyes. It enchanted him, and he had to blink himself back to reality and turn his attention towards the blinking lights of the ship’s console.

  
He, on the other hand, was just a Twi’lek. Green skinned, with narrow eyes atypical to his species being his only defining feature. His short and compact frame did him well when in a fight, as most thought him to be a Padawan, too gentle faced to be a Knight. The closest he got to the stars in a Rodian’s eyes were the occasional freckles on his nose when he stayed too long in the sun.

  
“Departing now.” Fezu said into the comm that linked them to the makeshift encampment that was still planetside. There was a scramble of voice that he took to be the affirmative and he nodded to Fezu that he was ready to go, as well. She began the start up sequence and the ship hummed under him. The slightest unease filled him, pulling his shoulders tense, as happened every time a ship took off under him. It was a reaction that his Master hadn’t been able to train out of him, though it was based entirely in unfounded fear.

  
To relax and refocus, he went over the details that he remembered from the Council's communications. Their mission was the escort of a civilian ship full to the brim of refugees hoping to flee into more secure Republic space. The two of them were really just there for security, but the ships speed meant that this mission could take up to a month and half and Nob never did much like to be up in space that long. He was better off with his boots on the ground, helping people in ways that he knew how and in a direct fashion, rather than overseeing over ten thousand people who want nothing more than a better life. He couldn’t help them, just make sure they got to people that could.

  
The ship they were destined to was in orbit already, and as it came into view from the cockpit, it looked ramshackle and huge. There were plates hanging off that meant there was no way it was fit for a hyperspace jump. It looked like it hadn’t been outwardly repaired in years and was barely held together by crude welding. It was a ship meant for enormous cargo that didn’t need to go from planet to planet in a timely manner- not for the masses of people that were going to have to call its empty bays home. Nothing of that boded well for the state of its inside, which he was sure had seen more attention, but also more traffic. He looked over to Fezu and her brow was furrowed, a small frown darkening the mood of the shuttle. She had come to all the same conclusions, he was sure.

  
“Mind that you don’t lose focus.” He said, more for his benefit than hers. Still, she nodded and he saw the tug up of her mouth, the chill in the air seeming to lift. The slow pressure that had been building in his chest seemed to lift, as well.

“As long as your keep yours as well.” She quipped back and he smiled. Despite his initial hesitation to work with someone new to him, he was beginning to think that they just might be able to make this work.

  
The momentary light-heartedness fell away from both of them as their neared the ship’s docking bay and set up permissions and received instructions on landing. The docks to the left and the right of the one they were instructed for were damaged badly enough they they didn’t keep an atmosphere shield in place. From where they were, the ship looked more like scrap; that was the reason they were there, after all. A ship like this one looked ripe for the pickings for scavengers and other low-lifes.

  
The ship was stable as it landed, but even from inside the shuttle Nob could hear the ship groan beneath the new weight. He closed his eyes and took a breath before exchanging a nervous look with his partner. Her hand didn’t hesitate as it flew over the controls of the ship to dock it properly and open the ramp door. He was already getting out of his seat, well ready to get onto ground, no matter how much more dangerous than it was than the shuttle. At least he didn’t have to fly this ship.

  
He didn’t look back at the shuttle as he exited, keeping his eyes forward on their welcoming party of one, who Nobrieley could feel relax when he saw the Jedi approaching. He was a Republic officer of some rank or another that looked as haggard as the ship felt. He let Fezu take the lead as he stepped to the side, finding himself disoriented and needing a moment. His head pounded as he reconciled and sorted through all the pain that he was feeling. All kinds of pain. There was death and sickness, sorrow and loss. It felt like cold creeping up his body from the ground beneath him and he had to make sure that he didn’t get lost in the feelings of others. He felt it, took it all up like it was something tangible and shaped it into a mental ball, tossing it away from his mind and not burden in his senses with it. To anyone but a Jedi, it would only looked like he merely shuddered from cold before composing himself again.

  
The metal at his feet was dirty; oil was ground into every crack and crevice and the smell of rotting fuel was hard to expunge from his nose. To distract from his, Nob cast his senses through the force, looking past the surface, past the floor beneath him, and through the halls of the ships. It wasn’t his job to help these people, only to keep them safe. If there was one and only one thing that he had learned from his many mistakes as a Knight, it was that the mission itself was the most important thing of all, and nothing could come before it. As a Jedi, they worked with cohesion, or not at all. However, this idealism did nothing for his headache and didn’t stop him from brining a hand up to his temples to rub the discomfort away.

  
Something moved in the corner of his vision and he was pulled out of his momentary inner thoughts. Fezu was waiting for him, the Officer shaking his head and walking away. Nobrieley reached out and made sure that his frustrations weren’t because of them. Touching the man’s mind, all he felt was that the officer felt hopeless and overwhelmed, but didn’t blame either of them. He hid his emotions well.

  
“Our quarters are down in Hanger 2. I had to convince him that the officers didn’t need give up theirs for us.” Fezu was shaking her head as well, her small mane flopping over to one side before she ran a hand over it and put it back into place. She, somehow, was still smiling. Or maybe it was a grimace. He didn’t bother to find out, stopping next to her and looking into the darkened archway that lead to the rest of the ship.

  
“Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

 

Days passed with nothing at all taking up Nobrieley’s time. They hadn’t so much as been hailed by another ship, let alone been boarded in the catastrophic events that everyone had been sure were to happen. Nothing. No Sith, no Sith lackeys, no pirates. Every time he had a moment to look out of the windows at the never ending blanket of stars, Nob found himself longing to be on planet again. Any planet. They were beautiful, yes, but it only reminded him that there were trillions upon trillions of people out there- and he was here, feeling terribly isolated.

  
He had fallen into the habit of training in the morning, while Fezu went about the ship, taking census of people and attending to them where she could. She pitied him, he knew, but she had to do it rather than him. As an empath, that kind of job was taxing at the best of times. Half of the ship was ill enough that he was afraid they wouldn’t survive the journey. Medicine and Doctors were plentiful enough to go around two or three times if the ship needed it, but the close quarter living in a too small ship negated that quickly. They were all in a bad sorts, but they didn't look it at first glance. These were a hardy people, all of them, and in every species he saw that they had their ears pricked up and smiles on, trying to make the best of what anyone else would have considered a catastrophe. If the Republic had been doing its job correctly, there wouldn’t be a need for them to flee from their homes in fear, a wake in their paths that held millions of dead in failed colonization. These, he reminded himself, were the lucky ones.

  
Every day, he took up stances one right after another to pretend to strike at an enemy that wasn't there. As to not hurt the furniture in his and Fezu's quarters, that he had pushed to the side to make room, and set his saber to training mode. He had wanted to go through full strikes, but there was little doubt in him that he wouldn’t hit something, regardless of how careful he was, and he knew that she would be short with him if she came back and the few pieces of furniture they arguably needed were nothing but splinters.

  
He moved into a ready stance. It wouldn’t actually be considered a form, but a stance that he found effective in many ways against those enemies that could fly, as it left his head and Lekku defended. Then, he steadied and centered himself and went through the motions, closing his eyes before he took the first swing to fully imagine his enemies. He started slow., but with every motion he sped up until he was in full gait.  
Strike. Block. Strike. Avoid. Repel. Strike.

  
The battle in his head raged on, silence surrounding him other than the crackle and swoop of his lightsaber as it swung and tapped at the floor. Notably, Fezu didn’t care if he marked up the floor.

  
He kept at this well past where the battle would have logically ended. In his mind, they kept getting up and pushing forward. He lost time in the rhythm of it. It was meditation that he found effective when he was buzzing with unused energy.

  
Like this, he passed hours training. Nearing the end of it, he was sweating, arms beginning to ache and he knew that he had to stop soon and allow his body to rest, or risk actually damaging himself.

  
Then, something popped into his view. Small, rolling across the floor, and his mind jumped to the worst conclusion possible- a grenade. Instinct took over for a split second as he twisted around, but pulled up just short of either striking at it or making his hasty retreat; blade tip humming right in front of the intrusive object, it stopped short. The ever so dangerous object was a ball. Only a ball. He moved his saber to the side to see a very small someone standing in his doorway, eyes wide.

  
He deactivated his lightsaber and let out a gratified sigh, which quickly devolved into a smile, then a laugh. The relief of coming off of an adrenaline rush had his aching muscles almost pleasantly warm, the pain avoided if only for a couple minutes more. There was no threat, save for those in his imagination. It was a ball and that was a child. A very scared looking child.

  
He dropped down to one knee and picked up the ball, looking it over to make sure the lightsaber hadn’t hurt it at all before standing and holding it out for the child. He made sure that he was as small as he could be, with a kind smile.

  
“You startled me, little one. Not an easy thing to do.” He commented, and he could practically see the calculations in her mind computing away. Her hostility and fear quickly turned to realization and elation as her face lit up, eyes almost comically wide on the dreadfully skinny face.

  
“That was amazing!” She shouted and he blinked as the shriek set his ears ringing. She scampered over to take the ball out of his hand. Closer, he could see that she was human. No more than 10, maybe a small 11 year old. Her dark hair was pulled back into three tails coming together in a loose braid. What should have been chubby child’s cheeks were thinned and hollow from what he could only guess was years of malnutrition. He could have held his hands around her wrist and she would have been able to slip her hand out without touching his palm, but there was still a spark of vitality in her.

  
He smiled back at her and nodded his thanks.

  
“Can you teach me how to be a Jedi?” She asked, all at once blunt. He found himself at a loss with how to answer such an audacious question. He paused, mouth open in a half formed reply. Before responding, he reached out with the force and searched but there was not even a spark of sensitivity in her.

  
“Sadly not, little one. That path isn’t meant for you.” He said with all grave seriousness. He shook his head and his Lekku slightly curled forward in a unconscious ‘sorry’. Her face fell, and he had to duck to see it properly, ready to console the poor child, but the look he was wasn’t resignation or sadness. It was determination and it hit him powerfully only a moment later.

  
“But you can teach me how to do that.” She sated, thrusting out his hand toward his lightsaber.

  
Nobreiley blinked in momentary confusion, before turning the hilt over in his hands and weighing it. The tenacity of the child amused him, and he knew that if he gave her the wrong answer he would never be rid of her. He had never had a Padawan. He had wanted one, of course, some time ago, but no one ever clicked well enough with him that he could have been a good mentor. Now, if they had given them someone like this, someone who had the constitution to fight for their life with a smile on their face… maybe then he would have accepted them.

  
Finally, Nobrieley replied. “I… could. If we had a training saber. However, I do not. This-” he held up the blade a little, “would be too dangerous. Not to mention what your parents would say.”

  
At once he knew he had said the wrong thing, and he mentally berated himself for his presumptions. He felt her close off from him so tight, that he second guessed his decision that she wasn’t force sensitive. Her face didn’t change, really, just harden.

  
“I’m terribly sorry.” He said, bowing his head in respect to her loss and now he just felt like he had to make it up to her somehow, and he didn’t have much to give, “I’m sure they would want you being able to defend yourself… so how about a deal. You let me teach you meditation, and I will let you find us two decent sticks so I can teach you how to dazzle anyone who would try to hurt you.”

  
That harshness in her too-young face washed away, and she ginned wide. He felt a warmth, and an emotion that he turned away from. There were strong feelings there- a sudden need to protect and care for. He wondered if his Master had ever felt anything like that for him.

  
Her reply came out with a out-thrust hand. “Deal.”

  
“Deal.” Nob said back, taking what he saw to be a delicate hand and giving it the firmist shake that he thought he thought she could handle, “I’m Nobrieley. What's your name?”

  
Her handshake was just as firm, matching his pound for pound.

  
“I’m Desti.”

 

* * *

 

 

Her lessons began the next day as she brought two ‘blades’ that looked like they could have once been the poles supporting a table. They were small enough that he was sure they would work. He just had to make them a little safer, dulling down any burs or scrapes to the wood that could cut. This was an activity that Desti took rapt attention in, and took to her own stick the same treatment. He hardly had to correct her. Then, they were off.

  
She took to the training like a Gungan to a lake.

  
He thought the pole should be too heavy for her. She proved him wrong. He thought that she would have a hard time keeping up with some of the basics of the forms without the Force. Again, he was proven mostly wrong, however there were just some things that just couldn’t be done without a touch of Force assistance.

  
Before and after each lesson, they would sit and he would walk her through meditation. He thought that it would have been better if they could have done it the way he learned first. Surrounded by the rush of an artificial waterfall behind him, his entire class serene around him. Alas, they didn’t have that option. Instead they sat on hard metal, the ambience of the ship around them, and the thousands suffering for company. He monitored her through the Force, silent together after she fell into the meditation.  She seemed a natural and her mind settled well. He didn’t encourage the Jedi teaching in her; she was allowed to feel as strongly as she wished and it wasn’t his place to try and calm her basic instincts. He taught her how to sort and examine each feeling as it came to her; she was to let go those feelings that were holding her down, and strengthen those feelings that were driving her forward. There was a compassion there that was locked so far down that it was hard to find even for him. She had been hurt before while trying to help, of that he was certain. Slowly, he coaxed those instincts back up, tempering her aggression.

  
It had been a long time since he had felt such pride in his work. He wasn’t sure who was looking forward to every midday more- him or her.

  
Fezu neither approved nor disapproved- but if the lessons ever took them near to her, she was quick to point out any weak points that Nobrieley was overlooking. Usually, those things were very applicable to the Jedi, and less so for a girl who couldn’t lift a pebble, let alone suspend herself an extra moment in the air to hit something. Fezu clearly didn’t take his word that she wasn’t sensitive. He always affirmed that they would work on those weak points, but they never actually did.

  
He taught her how to fight dirty. He taught her the object of her lessons was to keep her and those she cared about safe; it didn’t have to be perfect. She wasn't a warrior, and had to get the job done as quick and as clean as possible. If that meant she favored keeping the pole too low in her grip for it to work with a lightsaber, then so be it. He wasn’t going to put a saber in her hand, and he doubted that she was ever even hold even so much as a vibroblade. The grip worked for her to put the most of her small mass behind every hit, and that was good enough for him.

  
Well over two weeks into Desti’s training, all three of them were seated around the table in the Jedi’s quarters. Desti’s chest was heaving, having flung her head back against the chair with an over exaggerated groan. Nobreiely was examining her wrist, making sure that she hadn’t accidently hurt it more than she was letting on when she overstepped and fell earlier. Fezu was going over population reports.

  
Desti kept very still as he turned it over once then twice. He wasn’t a healer, but he thought that it felt alright, so he released it and gave her a small pat on the shoulder. She gave a thumbs up with her good hand to say that the message was received.

  
Fezu sat up then, and reported to Nob, “There are 9,672 humans accounted for, and they are the majority of the ship. All other species combined is only 2,356 at my last count, though neither of those numbers may be completely accurate as births and deaths in the last four days have not been accounted for.”

  
Nobrieley nodded, patting Desti on the arm in reassurance and pushed a glass of water towards her as he turned his attention to his partner.

  
“We should keep careful count of those if we can. The Council needs accurate numbers if they are to find a place for these people.” He said with a sigh, and Fezu nodded in agreement. The very first sound of a sentence came out of her mouth before she was violently interrupted by Desti’s sputtering cough.

  
A panic gripped Nobriely that was not his own, his breath catching in his chest. Something was very, very wrong.

  
Nobrieley stood and caught the child as she fell to her knees off the chair. She was hot to the touch, where she had been damp with cooling sweat only moments before. He turned her over and cradled her head, trying to see what could possibly have gone wrong.

  
Fezu flew into action as well and was already checking the glass of water over and when she found nothing, she knelt beside the both of them, shaking her head for Nob’s answer to the question never posed.

  
Nobrieley’s heart thudded as he encouraged Desti to breathe, rubbing her back as she coughed until there was no air to push out. She was shaking, little sobs wracking her body that she couldn’t get out without the much needed air. Nob couldn’t breathe either, and he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself steady if he were to stand.

  
Then, Fezu placed her hands on the child’s chest and he could see the flow of the Force as it worked to ease the child, and it was like a burden had been lifted. When she could finally breathe again, her body sagged, and Nob gathered her up in his arms, tossing a worried look over to his partner.

  
“Call up the medics, I’ll meet them at their station.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What is Snap Plague?” Nobrieley demanded even before the medics even had a chance to explain themselves, trying to keep his voice completely neutral, and failing. The medics were shaking, glancing to each other. Already, most of the rest of the staff was behind him, unwilling to approach Desti, who was back to having fits of coughing.

  
“Rare is what it is.” One of them ventured. “She’s not contagious yet, but once she is…” the medic shook her head. “It will be over for her, and the rest of us, in a… well, in a snap, if you will forgive the colloquialism.”

  
Nobreiely shook his head, a could, numb feeling making it difficult to come up with a sensible solution. Fezu excused herself to go and contact the Jedi in charge of this mission and get some guidance as to what to do in the situation, already having stated that a plague was above their authority to try and manage.

  
“It only attacks humans. The first person it takes doesn’t always die, but everyone else will. It doesn’t survive at all without a host… if this were my call, or that of any of these refugees… Well, they wouldn’t want her to pass it on.”

  
If it wasn’t for the fact that Nobrieley could feel how much it hurt the medic to say that, he couldn’t have bit back the bitterness. He then felt something that stopped his breath in his chest. He was, for lack of a better word, angry. He was worried. There was even a healthy dose of fear. Over what? He hardly knew this girl, and yet…

  
He couldn’t bare the thought of her being taken away.

  
It only affected humans. As the thought played on loop in his mind, he heard the horrific retching coughs from the table. He stepped past the medics without a word and walked over to her, taking one of her too small hands into his and rubbing his thumb along it, giving what comfort he could as she got over her latest fit.

  
“I’m here.” He murmured, kneeling down so that she could see him through half squinted eyes. She had no parents to comfort her, no brothers and sisters to stand by her side. She needed him, he thought. “Don't worry. I’m here.”

  
Fezu came back only moments later and came up behind him, taking his shoulder and pressing for him to stand so she could speak to him. He let her lead him away with only a moment’s glance back at the table that Desti was being held on. Most of the medical had left the room to try and decontaminate.

  
In the next room over, far out of earshot for any of the remaining humans, she spoke to him in a low voice, those eyes like stars clusters looking at him like they were trying to take a look into his conflicted soul. He looked away and took solace in the fact she was a warrior and a physical healer, not nearly as attuned to the emotions of others as he was.

  
“We can not allow her to endanger every human on this ship. The task has been given to us to stop the threat of the plague.” Her words were carefully chosen, and from how he could feel her, he knew she had made up her mind. He also knew that she was suspecting him to protest, that he was going to let his feelings guide his actions.

  
She was, so sadly, right.

  
“I won't allow that.” He said, squaring his shoulders, bracing himself.

  
“The council-” She started.

  
“The council is hundreds of parsecs away from here! There has to be another way.” He snapped back.

  
“There isn’t.” She said. Her voice was calm, reasonable, and he felt something burning up in his chest that he hadn’t felt since he was a Padawan. That ever so tight rope kept around his volatile emotions seemed to be fraying.  
“There is.” He whispered, voice tight.

  
He moved before Fezu had a chance to defend herself. She had only been a Knight for a few months at most, and he had years to account for. While she was filing reports, he was training the little one and having to come up with all new creative ways not to fight as a Jedi, but to fight in a way that others would understand. He wasn’t a warrior, but he was quick and he was clever and sometimes that was all a Jedi needed to overcome.

  
His saber came up, hilt to her chest and all he did was flick the switch, nearly silent. The blade was gone even more it fully extended.

  
She crumpled and he caught her. He dropped his saber and it fell to the ground with what felt like a deafening clatter in the ensuing silence. Already, he felt tears gathering in his eyes and it felt like a fist had been driven into his sternum. The weight of his choice seemed to strangle him.

  
She wasn’t alive to give dramatic last words when he turned her to look at him, and somehow that made it worse. Those huge eyes looked up at him and he had some fanciful idea that maybe he would see the stars flickering out of them. He didn’t. They were dull, already beginning to dry, but his fanciful idea of stars were just how the Rodians took in light, like their own pupils. The poetry of pretty imagery wasn’t going to take back what he had done.

  
He had precious little time to panic or mourn, and the kind of cold calculation that he wished he had had only a moment ago fell into place as he picked up her body. Vomit rose up into his throat and he tilted his head back and took a breath, willing the tears away. He was feeling too much. Her body was unbelievably light and he kept her carefully balanced as to not soil himself with the unfortunate byproducts of sudden death.

  
He took precious seconds to look around the room they found themselves in. There was a vent that was over a small lab that was set up along the back wall. It was meant to cut off chemical fumes, so it was large enough, if barely. He had to climb on a table to reach it. He pried it open, careful to set it down quietly, and slipped her in, only pausing to unclip her saber. He pushed her out of sight with a single Force shove and replaced the cover. He kept it methodical and cold, otherwise he wouldn’t have the strength to do it at all.

  
He would deal with that later.

  
He climbed down off the table, sitting on the floor and melting into the wall. He felt sick as he cradled his head in his hands, and little pinpricks of pain hardly registered as his nails dug into his skin.

  
It took him a couple more minutes for him to be able to stand, composed, and clip the other saber to his belt.

  
When he returned to the doctors, that cold face was on like a mask. When asked, he told them that Fezu had gone off to see to something the Council had commanded. Jedi business. No one ever questioned Jedi business, and they blindly took his word for it. The child had gone deathly pale, but at least the coughing had stopped. They were all looking at him like the expected him to take out his saber and put it through her right then and there, like he was some kind of benevolent monster. Not a single one noticed or mentioned the second saber on his belt.

  
“There is nothing you can do for her here?” He asked one of the medics, looking her over with worry as he spoke.

  
“Nothing.” The medics echoed back, and Nobreiley just nodded.

  
He picked Desti up once more and held her tight to his chest, walking them both out of the room, cutting a swath through the doctors that parted, all of them a panicked pale.

  
He had a plan, if a simple one. He would just keep her away from the rest of the ship and she wouldn’t infect anyone, then her spirit would pull through and she would live. She had to. There was no way a little one with so much strength would let something like this take her.

  
Walking through the halls, it was harder to keep the calm face up and he was a twitching, shaking mess by the time they arrived at the Jedi quarters. He saw the perfectly made bed with the small bag of things they needed for this mission next to it on Fezu’s side of the room and nearly retched. He avoided looking again, spurring himself forward with the fact that there was someone who needed him more than a corpse did.

  
He put Desti down on his own bed, tucking her in, feeling her forehead with a swipe of his hand and just letting himself be glad that she was still breathing. Quarantine was a tried and true method that worked. They could figure out what to do after they landed. Even though he knew he was be tried and convicted of Fezu’s murder, the doctors on Coruscant would have to help her.

  
With Desti down and sleeping, he stared at the wall for hours with silence ringing in his ears and Fezu’s dead eyes staring back at him, those glittering eyes going out speck by speck in his mind. He felt a tear slip down his face, the invading taste of salt in his mouth so foreign to him that when he wiped it away, he just looked at the moisture on his hand like it was some strange creature. A Jedi shouldn’t cry.

  
He was pushed out of a spiraling thought by a weak cough from the bed and he shook his Lekku out before standing up to go and tend to her. At least there would be a while more of distraction. A while more of making sure his Desti was as comfortable as possible. Maybe, if she ever woke again, they could do meditation lessons from bed. It would good for the body, and healing for the mind.

  
“Hang in there.” He muttered, wiping some hair off her clammy forehead, “Just hang in there and everything will end up alright.”

 

* * *

 

 

Turns out, a ship goes faster when there are nearly 10,000 less bodies to have to haul about, and they arrived in the core almost two weeks ahead of schedule. It limped into orbit over the destined planet, struggling to hold a stable distance. All the pilots were dead save for two, and the ones that had taken over for them were far from professionals. They were used to scrapping ships and landlocked speeders.

  
Desti was dead.

  
Everyone was clamoring to get off. Hunger was an omnipresent thing now that most of the food preppers were dead. Most of the kitchens hadn’t been fired up in well over a week and they were surviving on what little dry goods could be distributed and cooked with only boiled water.

  
Desti was dead.

  
People were throwing their anger at Nobrieley, though they knew nothing of his hand in this. He had been cut off from everyone after the Snap Plague hit. Emotionless in the extreme, he knew he scared them. The brave Jedi that were supposed to protect them hadn’t been able to stop even a single death, and the fantasy that they held was shattered. The mysticism and marvel of having a Jedi on board was crushed for all of the remaining passengers.

  
Desti was dead.

  
When the hanger doors opened and the Jedi ship slipped in, he felt the distinct anxieties and tensions of four Jedi aboard it. To anyone else, he was sure that their feelings would be easily hidden behind that mask of calm. They had good reason to worry, though. After Fezu, he hadn’t contacted the council again. The Jedi in that ship knew something was wrong, just not what. So, he was hardly surprised when they walked out with lightsabers lit and ready to hunt down whatever had taken over their ship. Though they were almost too far away to see, he didn’t have to strain to imagine their confusion as they saw him and only him waiting for them, lightsaber out and face drawn in determination.

  
The moment of confusion didn’t last. They would feel his fear, and his sorrow and there would be little question of his guilt, though perhaps not what he was guilty of. The creaking emptiness of the death trap of a ship encroached around them and he was its reaper. His love held the blood of enough men, woman, and younglings to fill an ocean of mistakes.

  
He wanted to see the stars from the ground again. He wanted to walk among all that in the living force again; feel the grass under his feet, feel the people around him in complete happiness. There was so much he still wanted to do. So much that couldn’t be done if he died here.

  
Desti was dead.

  
He didn't want to die. He didn’t want to be imprisoned if they were feeling merciful as they should. He was responsible for this, and he wasn’t sure he could face that charge with dignity. Once they knew that he has killed Fezu, he knew what would happen to him. He had heard about what could happen to Jedi who go rogue.

  
In their eyes he would be no better than Sith.

  
So, when they came up to him demanding a report, that cold emotionless look didn’t change as he advanced and put his blade through the chest of the singular knight. In a prolonged singular moment, he looked her in her eyes and there he saw betrayal. He kicked her off the blade and came back with a sweeping slash that took off a chunk of the next Jedi’s head. It had been a horrified Padawan that made his stomach turn. He shut the image of the brain matter on the floor before it could distract him.

  
The other two Jedi jumped back in time to avoid his blade, but the fight had commenced, and nothing was going to stop it. He advanced, blade out and pulled back like a scorpion’s tail.

  
They kept retreating and pleaded with him. They wanted to know why, and Nob found that he didn’t have to proclivity to answer them. One fell to his blade, then the other. He stood between the two bodies, swallowing back bile and looking at anything but their eyes.

  
That brought his crimes up to five. Plus some.

  
He took Fezu’s saber from the back of his belt, and threw it down along with his own, the finality of the blade rolling to a stop at the edge of one of the dead Jedi’s robes stifling. No Jedi would have done what he did, and if he never held a saber again, then perhaps that would be a step forward in a penance that he could never pay off.

  
There was no one else in this hanger to witness it, but he was sure someone would come and look before long. It would be a while before the Council knew what had happened, a long enough while for him to be out of Republic space.

  
As he boarded their shuttle, this time he didn’t look back. He settled behind unfamiliar controls, and he noticed then that his hands were shaking, and a deep breath wasn’t settling it. It was time to learn advanced flying.


End file.
